The Ned Wood Archive

Like a Polish wanderer
I travel ever onwards to your land

You could only really have a good chat with Scottish Cat if it was just the two of you. If there were more folk in the room, she’d be much quieter and let others do the talking. For most of the time, that is. Even when there was a crowd of us, she generally had the last word. But, in a crowd, that was more or less her only word. If it was just the two of you, you could have a conversation. Find out a bit more of what she was thinking. Get a bit more depth.

I asked her about those stories once. The stories we tell about ourselves. We bumped into each other one Saturday shopping at the Capital Meat Centre, well known to students everywhere as the cheapest meat supplier in the whole of the city. You couldn’t miss her. She was wearing that bright sweater of hers. Some shade of purple; violet, maybe. The one where all of the strands seem to stick out like a wiry dog. With her bleached hair sticking up, she looked like she was generating static electricity, like that Van der Graaf globe we played with in physics at school.

When they first arrived, Fi and Cat, they had to go out together, and when they did, they kept quiet and tried to hide from other folk. Now, here she was drawing attention to herself and scaring off the poor innocent shoppers. One of the older ones made about her. Under her breath, but I heard it. I thought maybe Cat did too. It was way over the top so it made me smile at the ridiculousness of it. I caught Cat’s eye and she burst out laughing. So we walked back along the Meadows together joking about it and then I suggested she pop in for a cuppa as we were approaching Marchmont Road.

So I asked her about what she was saying about stories, guessing that it was something she’d heard about on her course. She’d said that stuff about the stories of the Stone of Destiny being what the Scots tell each other. And she’d wound up Pete about telling stories at the Round Table when he was in his King Arthur phase – about how you had to tell a story of your own adventures and exploits before you could eat or sommat, the point being for Arthur’s knights to reinforce the stories about chivalry and good deeds and fair maidens and whatever. It’s possible that he also knew the theory. There was a rumour that Pete was on the same English course as Cat, although Cat said she’d never seen him at any of the lectures or anything.

And she said that we, all of us, told ourselves stories about ourselves. Some of them happy stories, some of them sad stories. Some of them believable, some of them unbelievable. And it’s the stories you believe about yourself that go to make up who you are.

For example, she said about Nessie always telling herself stuff about the adventures she was going to have, which mountain she was going to climb, which new country she was going to discover.

“That’s what I like about her,” I said. “That energy.”

“I know you do,” she replied. “Me too. That age is best which is the first, when youth and blood are warmer.¹”

“Say that again.”

“That age is best which is the first, when youth and blood are warmer… this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying. That’s what’s great about my course. It gives you all the best lines.”

“Gonna break out of the city, leave the people here behind. Searching for adventure, it’s the type of life to find.²”

“Touché.”

Then she said: “That’s the problem with Gavin. He tells himself sad stories and he believes them. No, not sad stories. Stories about his being unlucky. That’s Gavin. If he could believe in luck, he’d be so much happier.”

“You make your own luck.”

“You see, that’s one of your stories, Ned. You believe that and it makes you lucky. Like finding this place.”

We were just back at the Palace of Marchmont by then. I asked her: “Go on then, tell me. What other stories do I tell myself.”

“Come in here, I’ll show you,” she said, opening my bedroom door rather than going down the hall into the kitchen. Fortunately, it wasn’t too messy. It was lucky that I’d tidied up a bit before I went out.

She pointed to the pictures on my wall. Not the posters, but the collection of photos, press cuttings, concert tickets, and stuff that I’d blu tacked above my desk.

“See here,” she said, pointing to various photographs of me, dapper and stylish: me and Anna Mulcahy at the tennis club, me and Annie at Glen and Chamberlain and on the weekend trip to Stroud; me and Claire Biggles, me and Dusty in London, me and Sonia and Victoria Carson and Jo and Helen …

“You’re just an old romantic,” she said..

“And, see here,” pointing at the pictures of me on various field trips, scruffy and muddy and wild haired and smiling. “You tell yourself you are the rough, no nonsense, outdoor type, but,” pointing back at the glam pictures of me and the girls, “at heart you like turning on the style.

“And here,” pointing at the assorted NME clippings: the Jam, the Only Ones, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Bowie, Joy Division, Lene Lovich, … “You tell yourself that you are a cool rocker. And the only definition of cool is your definition. The only one that counts. I mean … Lene Lovich???

“Och, Ned. I can read you like a book. You’re so English. And it’s so much easier to read you than Chaucer.”

“English? How?”

“You tell me. What does Englishness mean to you?”

I probably said something like “Cottages. Green meadows. Cricket on the village green. Stiff upper lip.”

She said: “No. That’s the stereotype Englishness. If someone came over and you wanted to take them to the best of England, where would you go?”

My first thought was the Peak District: Millers Dale, Chee Dale, those places where I did my undergrad mapping.

Then I got warmed up pretty quickly. Other places we went for field trips: the Dorset coast, Cornwall, Ingleborough. Wenlock Edge and the Longmynd where I spent a summer working in a youth hostel. The Lakes where we went youth hostelling with our kid and Alex. Dosthill quarry, swimming with Else. But also London – the walk from Paddington to South Ken, Bernie’s mate in Kew and his record collection, Kew Gardens itself, Billy, Susie, and Paulie in Ealing, bands at the Nashville. And then there’s the City Ground, especially at the start of the season when the grass is clean and green. Once you get going on your list, you can’t stop. There isn’t just one place. There are so many different places. There are so many different Englands.

Cat interrupts me. “OK. Not just places. What else? What does it mean to be English?”

That’s a good question. What did it mean to me? Again, I start slowly. Diffidence. Modesty. Independence. Scared to show emotions. Acceptance. Tolerance. And then all sorts of ideas. Triumph Spitfires. MGBs. The Jam. The Pistols. The Clash. Spike Milligan. Fawlty Towers. Bobby Charlton. Brian Clough. Dales. Old bookshops. Antique shops. Corner shops. Sweet shops. The Science Museum. The Natural History Museum. All those old museums in all those old towns. Ealing Comedies. Brief Encounter. A Hard Day’s Night. “Never mind, have a cup of tea.” “Well it all rather depends.” “Oh, I mustn’t grumble.” The Teardrop Explodes. Echo & the Bunnymen. Joy Division.

I pause for breath. That’s the start of my list. It’s different for everyone. So many stories. So many Englands.

“So what about you, Cat?” I asked. “What are your stories?”

“I’m still looking for the best stories. That’s why I’m doing English lit – to try and find the perfect one.”

1. To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick, 1648 ↩︎
2. Do Anything You Wanna Do, Eddie & the Hot Rods, 1977 ↩︎